Margot Friedländer

Margot Friedländer, a Holocaust survivor who became a public speaker more than six decades after being liberated from a concentration camp, died May 9, 2025, at a hospital in Berlin at the age of 103.

Friedländer was 11 years old when the Nazis came to power in her native Germany. By her teens, Jews were being forced into camps and murdered. Her mother and brother were among them. She initially escaped capture and lived in hiding, disguising her Jewish identity in order to escape the country, but she was betrayed in 1944 and sent to a concentration camp. Friedländer was liberated by Allied forces in 1945 and emigrated to the United States the following year. For most of her adult life, she remained silent about her experiences, considering herself an exile from her birthplace.

It was only in 2010, some years after the death of her husband, that she returned to Berlin and began speaking about the Holocaust. Friedländer became a public speaker who advocated peace and tolerance, trying to offer a warning about the dangers of hate, bigotry, and fascist leadership, all with the goal of ensuring it never happens again. In 2014, the Schwarzkopf Foundation created the Margot Friedländer Prize in her honor to recognize others who fight against racism. Her efforts earned her an array of awards, including the Talisman Prize, the Walther Rathenau Prize for outstanding lifetime achievement in foreign policy, and many others. She wrote a memoir in 2008, "Versuche, dein Leben zu machen," which was translated into English, "Try To Make Your Life," in 2014.

Musician Giora Feidman spoke fondly of Friedländer on Facebook. "We have lost one of the last contemporary witnesses of the Holocaust - a woman who survived Auschwitz and Theresienstadt and dedicated her life to remembrance. She spoke not only of what happened, but of what we must make of it - today, tomorrow, always," he wrote. "It was a special gift to meet Margot Friedländer in person last year. Our conversation was brief, but carried a depth that left a lasting impression. Her gentle yet insistent voice still resonates with me - as if it had not faded, but remained alive within me."

By Eric San Juan

(Image: Annette Riedl/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)